More Spontaneity - Spring Walk

It could be a good idea spending some solid time in my cool basement when the outside is in upper eighties, which I did today and made a good progress for a new piece, Spring Walk. 18"x10". After some sketching on canvas, I left this piece there a while. But today I spent about 2 hours to test my sense of color and values in wet-in-wet manner only with a No.10 brush. More like plein air. The outcome was surprisingly superb. Even though the proportion of the cow is a little off (thinner), it shows good sense of value differences. I could have made it much darker, I guess. That I would do when this dries up.

Back in Business

This month, I coudln't make much progress after the last holiday. But finally re-started working on something. Instead of working on straggling Skagit Valley because I couldn't get colors right, I started working on a new piece from the last plein air. 22"x30". This Yellow Hill is about the composition, some key lines (diagonal and horizontal) and shadow part of trees. The focal point is distinctive trees at the intersection of those key lines at upper left.
I now think I've instinctively chosen to paint this on-site because of these points, in addition to colors.
This time, I painted sides of streached canvas w/ burnt umber. This attempt is experimental. I got this idea from my last Seattle Artwalk.

Recent Plein Air

I missed the best opportunity of painting outside on Memorial Dal weekend Saturday, when I and my friend went out for artwalk in Seattle. It was a gorgeous day. But I couldn't give up and tried getting the last piece of it in early Sunday morning. I stayed in Silverdale Saturday night then drove over Hood Canal Floating Bridge. Before the weather got worse, I settled myself on the beach on the west side of Hood Canal. I thought the good chunk of landmass on the canal was an island. But actually it was connected to Olympic Peninsula, called Hood Head. I figured this after I got home. Since the weather was changing quickly, so was light. I tried capturing subtle color changes of the trees but failed. Then I needed to leave there before rain started. I may try again this summer.

A week later, I went down to Columbia River Gorge but I decided painting on Columbia Hills on WA side. I liked more rounded shaped landscape over the hills that particular day. And it had more colorful greens and yellows. I'm satisfied with the contrast between the yellow hill and dark greens of the forest in a small valley that I could recreated on the canvas.